The Climate Emergency, Deep Adaptation Forum, Just Stop Oil & The Scottish Centre for Geopoetics
Unfortunately and not surprisingly I have a few posts on this subject as the temperatures soar and the birds have gone very quiet.
Please check out the latest edition of Stravaig (no 11) from the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics, which has a timely edition with a lot to say about geopoetics and also the catastrophe of climate change. The cover and my feature image is by talented artist Caroline Watson entitled ‘Along the Horizon, With or Without Us’: I so dearly pray it won’t come true. Many thanks to the editorial team for including a poem of mine on that subject, echoing Dylan Thomas, ‘A Villanelle for the Bees and the Birds’, and whilst I am mentioning it, for including one of my poems on family history in Stravaig 10, last year. I would recommend joining the SCG if you are at all interested in discussions by geologists, poets, artists etc. from all walks of life, who are concerned about our planet and our position as custodians of its future.
What can you say on this subject except why are we sitting in the dark waiting for a government to act? I think it is the not knowing, the details of how to switch from oil etc. which of course are mammoth but need to be at the forefront of discussion every day now. Most people are law-abiding but they realise that they are looped up in the systems that support oil: fuel bills, transport, all byproducts etc. Let’s stop oil and future fracking projects and start arresting global warming. Everyone should be working at getting temperatures down.
I have been fortunate in having my poetry film I Cannot be Human included in the Deep Adaptation forum online. Many thanks to talented ecopoet Janet Lees for putting it forward and to the organisers for welcoming it, though of course I wish all of it wasn’t happening.
The Psychological Pain of Global Warming
I would recommend the forum to those of you who are struggling with the ecological emergency we are in, and need to share and discuss issues with likeminded people.
The Deep Adaptation forum
Another place I would suggest is the Just Stop Oil campaign www.juststopoil.org
One of the most inspiring people in that is Zoe Cohen who can be seen bringing the Jeremy Vine TV hosts back to reality in this wonderful interview
I think this shows how we are so schizophrenic. People put on their suits and talk the talk just to get through their day, but know the reality underneath and realise the implication that everything, but everything needs to have a new approach to living. You can’t have a frothy chat about a bit of heat when there are such massive implications and you can’t sweep it under the carpet. Good for you Zoe!
We need to know what the big companies are doing to help us have plans in place to follow (new fuels) right now so we can all feel we are doing our bit to save the planet. On a positive side I am a big supporter of the new forests that are being planted, or so I understand. In 2020 the government announced plans for ten new forests to be planted in just five months. And here at the Northern Forest there seems to be hope.
If trees are planted and environments replaced that is something that we can hang on to and have faith in this and each other.
Coming soon I will be featuring two leading eco activist poetry filmmakers from America – Pamela Falkenberg and Jack Cochran, who have made it their lives’ mission to wake us up to the state of our planet. Not to be missed.
